Betting on the NBA Lockout

I can’t believe that we won’t be seeing an NBA season this year, but with the lockout as it stands now it may be a (cruel, cruel) reality. The chance of this season beginning on time is looking pretty grim and a deal needs to be struck between players and owners very fast if we are going to see the first game start on time.

In my depressed state, I decided to do some sports betting to cheer myself up and landed up at the Bodog site.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that the NBA season debate had reached there as well! Bodog is offering odds on the season starting and if this site is anything to go by, we won’t be seeing a season at all!  Talk about adding fuel to the fire!

So here are the odds for anyone interested:

The best odds are set at 5/4 that the NBA won’t be happening at all this season, which did nothing to placate me.

Odds on how many games will the NBA play this year? All 82 – 8/5.  If you’re optimistic and believe that the season will start on time, that’s a pretty good bet with relatively safe odds.

If you think that one to fifty games will be played, you’ll find odds of 3/1.  Not a good bet if you ask me.

But if you bet on 51- 81 games being played, you’ll be safe with odds of 4/1.  It’s reasonable to expect that some games will be cancelled if the lockout continues and the opening is delayed by a couple of weeks, but there’s still a good chance to see around 75 games being played even if this happens.

So here’s another desperate call from a die-hard NBA fan: Come on guys.  Get your act together.  Sit down and talk until you can send out white smoke, but before then don’t move from the negotiating table. There are too many good things that we can see this season to risk cancelling it altogether.  And if nothing else speaks to you, think of the millions of dollars going down the drain.  NBA all the way!